Panthera balamoides Temporal range:
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Holotype humerus in anterior and posterior views. | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Suborder: | Feliformia |
Family: | Felidae |
Subfamily: | Pantherinae |
Genus: | Panthera |
Species: | †P. balamoides
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Binomial name | |
†Panthera balamoides Stinnesbeck et al., 2019
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Panthera balamoides ("similar to jaguar") is a possibly dubious species described as an extinct species of the big cat genus Panthera that is known from a single fossil found in a Late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean NALMA, dated to 13,000 BP) age cenote in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. P. balamoides has only a single reported specimen, the distal end of a right humerus (upper arm bone), that is notably of exceptional size for a felid. It was unearthed in 2012 from an underwater cave and described in 2019 by an international group of paleontologists from Mexico and Germany led by Sarah R. Stinnesbeck. However, several authors have since proposed the humerus represents that of a bear, possibly the extinct Arctotherium, and not a cat.